The Devil's Heart
by PearlQ19
Summary: Possible season opener for Season 5. Deckerstar, implied Maze/Eve (Meve?). Hopelessly emotional. Read appreciated, reviews welcome. Come and get it, Lucifans! This was planned as a one-shot, but I've been persuaded to continue, at least until the final season comes along.
1. Chapter 1

**The Devil's Heart**

_A/N:__ For four seasons I've resisted writing Lucifer fanfic. Now I've caved. Here's my take on a possible opener for season 5._

_Disclaimer:__ As usual, not mine, no profit, please don't sue. _

_This is dedicated to the amazing cast and crew of "Lucifer." Thank you, thank you, thank you!_

"Are you sure you don't want to stay for dinner?" Dan made a vague gesture with his hand. "I'm sure we could arrange …"

"Dad, you've already ordered food for two," piped up Trixie.

"Yeah, Trix, because it's impossible, of course, to call them and place a follow-up order," teased Dan with an eye-roll.

"Or you could share your half," said Trixie mischievously and poked a finger into Dan's stomach, which had expanded ever so slightly over the past few months.

"Oy!" Dan cast Chloe a glance that was part amusement, part desperation. Chloe chuckled.

"Thanks for asking, but I'm not really hungry. I'm bone tired, to be honest."

"You don't look too well," observed Dan, then added with a sheepish grin, "No offense."

"None taken." Chloe yawned. "I wouldn't be much of a laugh tonight, anyway. I think I just want to go home, crash on the couch, and fall asleep in front of the TV. If I weren't a mom and cop, I'd mute both my phone _and_ the doorbell."

"Message received," said Dan. "We won't call you unless it's an emergency."

"Thanks, Dan." Chloe put her hand on his arm and smiled. "You guys have fun!" She hugged Trixie and gave her a kiss on top of her head. "I'll pick you up Sunday afternoon. Maybe we can all go for some ice cream then, how does that sound?"

"Great!" shouted Trixie with a wide smile.

"Sounds like a plan. Good night, Chloe!" Dan started to close the door when Chloe poked her head back through the gap and said, "If you feel like company tonight, you can always ask Ella to come over. I know for a fact she's free most nights these days."

Dan stiffened visibly, but Chloe did not say anything else. She winked at her ex-husband and her daughter, turned around, and walked to her car. She could see Trixie appear in the kitchen window, waving as she got in the car. Chloe tapped her high beams twice in salute, accelerated, and drove down the street.

She continued in the general direction of her house until she reached a large intersection, where, instead of carrying on straight ahead, she turned right, heading downtown.

She felt a little guilty for lying to Dan. But he wouldn't understand what she was about to do, and after all, they were not married anymore. It was none of his business where she went, and if anything happened to Trixie, he would still be able to reach her. But at least she knew he wouldn't call her unless it was really urgent.

Chloe continued along the road until she had reached her destination. As she pulled into the private car park round the back, she looked toward the street.

The line in front of the Lux was shorter than it used to be, especially on a Friday night. Word had gotten around that Lucifer Morningstar, the devilishly handsome owner, known for his impromptu musical performances and other unexpected tricks up the sleeve of his impeccable suit, had left town on urgent business without leaving a return address. His second-in-command continued to run the place, but there was no doubt about it that the heart and soul of the Lux was gone, at least for the time being, and the club was now just that: a club.

Chloe got out of the car and entered the building through the service door at the back, first using the key Lucifer had given her and then punching in the code to disarm the alarm. The code was, unsurprisingly, 6-6-6. Lucifer had probably thought it was funny. She crossed the hall, briefly debating taking the shortcut through the interior of the club across the dance floor and up the stairs, but decided against it. Instead, she took the long way around, climbing the stairs to the upper floors where the office was, and then calling the elevator that went up to the penthouse. Using her key and the code once more (remembering how Maze had once told her, deadpan, "It's the same code as downstairs, only backwards"), she rode all the way up to the top, got off, and stepped into Lucifer's apartment. The elevator doors closed, and silence welled up around her.

Chloe took a deep breath and leaned against the wall for a moment. Lucifer had only been gone for a few weeks, but the place already had a distinctly empty feeling to it. It was too neat, too orderly; no used glasses on the counter, nothing on the couch table, the lid of the baby grand piano closed. The bottles of liquor in the backlit bar cabinet were gathering a thin layer of dust, the only exception being Lucifer's favorites: a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of Jamaican rum, which Chloe now grabbed from the shelf along with a glass to pour herself a shot. Sipping the amber liquid, she slowly wandered around the apartment, as she had done so many times over the past few weeks.

When she had come here first, three days after Lucifer had left, all she had wanted was to make sure everything was in order. But she had found that it gave her a strange sense of calm and consolation to be here, where every piece of furniture, every decorative item, still preserved his presence. She felt close to Lucifer in those hours alone in his apartment, and so she had come back again, and again, and again, never staying too long at a time, but lingering nevertheless. Sometimes she'd have a drink, or walk out onto the roof terrace, or simply stand there and take in the atmosphere of the place, remembering.

And she had the strong suspicion that she wasn't the only one. Once she had entered the penthouse and seen a figure outside on the roof terrace which she was pretty sure had been Amenadiel. It spoke volumes about all that she'd learned, she reflected with wry amusement, that her first thought upon seeing a stranger outside a top-story window wasn't "cat burglar" but "angel."

Another time she had bumped into Maze in the elevator. Maze had pretended that she'd just been up to look for a certain folder she needed for the tax advisor, but Chloe wasn't fooled: Maze was missing Lucifer almost as much as she did.

Chloe set down her glass of rum on the grand piano and sat down on the stool. Running her fingers over the gleaming keys, she struck a few notes, but her piano playing skills didn't add up to very much. A small pile of sheet music was stacked on top of the piano. Chloe knew that Lucifer usually played his pieces by heart, but she supposed that even he had to check the score from time to time.

Her heart constricted painfully in her chest as she spotted the sheet music of "Eternal Flame" in the pile. Pulling it out and unfolding it, she noticed that it had been heavily annotated.

Lucifer had sung that song for her once, in front of a crowd of people. It now seemed a lifetime ago; back then, Chloe still had had no idea about her partner's true nature. But she had sensed the truth behind the song, the sincere apology in it, and seeing the hand-written notes in the sheet music now touched her deeply: Lucifer had obviously spent quite some time perfecting his performance. He hadn't just winged it, as he so often did; he had planned it meticulously, wanting it to be perfect.

"Lucifer," whispered Chloe, tears welling in her eyes. She ran her fingertips over the piano keys once again, sounding out the melody of the song.

She took a deep gulp of air, trying to breathe down the pain, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and reached again for her glass of rum. Downing the rest of the shot, she tipped her glass briefly toward the floor in salute and then stood up.

The sudden rumbling of the elevator arriving and the subsequent _ping_ of the doors opening startled her. She whipped around, hand on her gun, but relaxed a moment later when Maze ambled into the room.

Maze looked at Chloe with a slightly cocked eyebrow and mockingly raised her hands to her shoulders. "Easy, Decker," she drawled.

"What are you doing here?" asked Chloe, regretting the words as soon as they had left her mouth. As if Maze had any less right to be here than she had.

"I could ask you the same thing," Maze promptly retorted, heading straight for the bar and pouring herself a glass of the same rum Chloe had had earlier. "But I won't."

"Yeah, I … " Chloe trailed off and instead held out her glass. "Pour me another one, will you?"

Maze filled her glass much more generously than Chloe had the first time around and pushed it back to her across the bar, then lifted her own in a mock toast. "To Friday nights, Decker!"

She downed the shot, refilled her glass, and then leaned her hip against the counter. The backlight of the bar cabinet threw the perfect angles of her face into sharp relief. She looked like a scowling, angry statue. But Chloe also noticed that her usually smooth, snakelike movements were slower, weaker somehow, and that the dark shadows under her eyes were not the result of a make-up experiment. Maze looked worn, much like Chloe herself was feeling.

"What _are_ you doing here on a Friday night, though?" Chloe asked. "I thought you usually came here during the week to have the weekend free for bounty hunting?"

"Yeah, well, the stupid tax officer's breathing down my neck," Maze growled. "Apparently I'm late in filing that shit. As if I knew what bloody papers and receipts and signatures the old bore needs! I never had to deal with that stuff, I only worked the bar."

"I can help you with that if you want," Chloe offered spontaneously. "I'm not an expert, but at least I've dealt with tax officers before."

"Oh, believe me, I have dealt with tax officers back home, too," said Maze sardonically. "But back then, _they_ were on the receiving end, not me!"

Chloe's lips twitched, but that made her think of something else.

"Maze …" she said hesitantly, "speaking of back home … what are you still doing here, anyway? Not that I want you to leave, too," she hastily added, "but all this time you were so fed up with Earth. You always told Lucifer you wanted to go home, but he wouldn't, and so you stayed. And now he's returned, and you could finally follow him, but you haven't."

Maze's face hardened as her jaw clenched. "He hasn't called me back yet, so I figured I'd stay just because I can," she said curtly. "I can't come and go at will. He needs to send me, or send for me."

"Oh." Chloe hadn't known that. "So once he calls you back …"

"… I'll be there with him until it tickles his fancy to send me back up again, yeah," said Maze. "Same reason I couldn't go home before. He wouldn't let me."

"Why hasn't he called you back, then?" Chloe asked. "I thought you were his most loyal sergeant? Won't he want you by his side …" Her voice cracked a little.

Maze stared past Chloe's shoulder into the distance. "I don't know," she said curtly.

But Chloe thought that she knew. Maze had been Lucifer's only friend for a long time, his closest confidante, and he had done precious little to reward her. But now she suspected that he had seen the obvious: Maze had finally gotten accustomed to Earth; grown to like it, even. She had connected to people: Linda, Chloe herself, Trixie, even Dan. Linda's son Charlie adored Maze; he wasn't in the least intimidated by her but smiled like the rising sun whenever he laid eyes on her. Chloe could tell that Maze was deeply attached to the baby, too. Charlie was cute as a button and one of the happiest kids Chloe had ever seen. Perhaps it was his angelic side. He almost never cried and was awfully regular when it came to bodily functions, keeping nighttime emergencies and exploding diapers to an absolute minimum. Yes, Maze had bonded with all those people, but most of all she had bonded with Eve.

And Eve was still out there.

Chloe had never hated Eve. She had burst into their lives at a crucial turning point, she had turned Lucifer's life upside down for a while, and she had messed up royally, but whenever Chloe thought of her, she remembered what Trixie had told her: When they had all been at Lucifer's apartment and the armed assassins stormed the place, Eve had not hesitated for a moment to protect Trixie, had jumped in front of her with every intention of shielding her with her body, should the men shoot. Not to mention that Eve's intentions had never been evil. She hadn't _meant_ to mess with Chloe's feelings, to butt into her already fragile relationship with Lucifer, and Chloe had to admit that she had liked her bubbly enthusiasm. In a way, Eve had reminded her of Ella.

But Eve had left, too, on a quest to find herself, something she had to deal with on her own. It was obvious that Maze had feelings for her, and that Eve herself displayed a certain streak of heteroflexibility which opened up a range of possibilities for them. Chloe hoped sincerely that Eve would eventually find her way back to Maze. She could only guess how torn the demon had to be; torn between her sense of duty, which demanded she should go back to Hell and join her master, and her heart, which told her to stay put on Earth and try to get a shot at her own happiness.

"What about the body you're inhabiting?" asked Chloe after she had finished her line of thought. That was one thing she had been thinking about for a while now.

"Girlfriend, this is all me," said Maze, indicating her handsome shape with a sweeping gesture. "It's one of the reasons I can't come and go at will, because I need to be physically transported, and you need an angel's assistance for that."

"I'm sure if you said the word, he would send for you immediately," Chloe said. "But I'm glad you're still here."

"Awww, Decker, are you going soft on me?" Chloe could tell that Maze was secretly pleased. "Would you miss me?"

"Maze, I miss you already," admitted Chloe, and only as she spoke the words did she realize that they were the truth. "I never should have let you move out." In a quieter voice, she added, "I can't really bear to be alone in my house these days. That's why I come here."

Maze was uncharacteristically silent for a moment. Then she pushed herself away from the counter and strolled over to the bedroom safe, rummaged around for a moment, and emerged once again carrying a large red folder. "Well, here's the deed to the Lux and all that stuff," she said. "I'll take that down to the office. If you really want to help me, you can stop by tomorrow afternoon."

"I'll be there," Chloe promised.

She looked after Maze as the elevator doors closed behind her, then went to the window and gazed out at the lights of the city sprawling beneath her. Inevitably, she remembered that day weeks ago, that fleeting moment of pure, unadulterated happiness when she had finally admitted to Lucifer how she felt about him and read the answer in his eyes before he even spoke. For the briefest of moments, she had felt whole, as if something had clicked into place which she hadn't even known was out of joint, as if she had fulfilled some sort of life purpose she had never even been aware of. Twice before, she and Lucifer had kissed, but this time, it had been different. This time, it had been _real_.

The cruelty of having found this only to lose it again was still weighing heavily on her.

The elevator rumbled again, and Chloe turned as the doors opened once again.

"What'd you forget, Maze?" she said. "Need another …" And then the words got stuck in her throat, because the person who walked out of the elevator and now stopped in their tracks as she spoke wasn't Maze.

It was Lucifer.

For one endless moment, they looked at each other without speaking. Chloe was not sure whether her legs would hold her, so she leaned back against the windowsill to steady herself.

He looked the same as always, and then again he didn't. He looked more haggard, his face more angular, the muscles under his shirt hardened. His eyes flashed red as he looked at her, and Chloe almost recoiled, but stopped herself in time.

"Detective," Lucifer said eventually, visibly making an effort to sound exactly as he always had. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"Lucifer! What … I mean, why … and how …" Chloe stammered, her thoughts an incoherent mess. "Are you really here?" she eventually managed.

"In the flesh!" declared Lucifer with a mock spread of his arms. He looked around and immediately spotted the two empty tumblers on the bar counter. "Have you been drinking my whiskey, Detective?" he asked sternly, taking a glass and sniffing it. "Ah, no, the rum. Well, that's all right, then." He took another step into the room and looked around, taking in the unchanged interior. "Love what you've done with the place," he quipped.

Chloe just continued to look at him. The shock of seeing him stroll in like he'd just been down to buy cigarettes still hadn't worn off. She could tell Lucifer was trying very hard to put on his usual nonchalant façade, but she also saw his hands shaking slightly, saw the nervous flicker of his eyes.

"How are you here?" she asked, finally managing to take a shaky step in his direction. "I thought you had to return to Hell for good. What happened?"

Lucifer stopped fidgeting around and focused his eyes on her for the first time. Something in them softened as he looked at her, and she saw the ghost of a smile brush across his mouth.

"You happened, Chloe."

"I don't understand."

"You will in a moment," said Lucifer. He walked to the piano stool and sat down on it, placing his hands on the piano keys in an almost unconscious move. Stroking the keys without actually pressing them down, he said, "Have you noticed any changes in your behavior recently, Detective? Have you been acting more recklessly? Cared less for the rules than you used to? Invented creative ways of outwitting your suspect when conventional police methods failed you?"

Chloe gaped. "Indeed," she said, remembering how Ella had jokingly told her that apparently she was channeling Lucifer in his absence. "I … I haven't cared about a lot of things these past few weeks," she added in a small voice.

"Well, I have found myself the exact opposite in Hell," continued Lucifer. "I've been reluctant to mete out punishment, for one. Been too nice to my underlings. I found myself challenging my own decisions every day, always looking for something good in the souls that arrived. Does that sound like anybody we know?"

"It sounds … it sounds like you've retained more humanity than you expected," said Chloe hesitantly.

"Exactly!" beamed Lucifer. "You've hit the nail on the head! I was too good. Too much …" He became serious again all of a sudden, looking straight into her eyes. "Too much like you," he added quietly.

"Like me?" Chloe's mind raced. "What does that mean?"

"It means that I am no longer fit to reign in Hell." Lucifer took his hands off the piano keys and turned on the stool until he was facing her. "You've made me a better man, Chloe. And as such a man, I have now returned to Earth while Father is trying to find a replacement."

He held out his hands to her and swallowed. "If you'll still have me, that is."

Chloe's feet started moving as if on their own accord before her conscious mind caught on. She covered the distance between them in a few strides until she stood directly in front of him, their knees brushing. She stood there for a moment, trembling, and then Lucifer raised his arms slightly, his hands at her waist, and the touch was all it took. With a shuddering sigh, Chloe took his upturned face into her hands, bent her head to his, and kissed him.

He responded immediately, his lips opening under hers, soft, tasting of bourbon and cigarettes. His arms tightened around her waist as he pulled her as close as he could. Her hands explored his face, tracing the outlines of his cheekbones, then traveling around his head and burying themselves in his silky hair.

Again and again they kissed, and slowly that feeling came rolling back over Chloe, this _wholeness_, as if she were exactly where she was meant to be.

After some time, Lucifer pulled back from the kiss, his eyes searching her face hungrily. "I've missed you so much," he said simply. "Chloe …" And he buried his head against her chest, his arms once again tightening around her waist. Chloe wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her cheek on top of his head, and they just stayed like this for a long moment.

When Lucifer raised his head again, a single tear hung in his lashes.

"There you have it, Detective," he said in a hoarse voice. "You've got the devil's heart. And quite literally so, I'm afraid."

"Literally?" Chloe frowned.

"Yes, indeed. The devil only has one heart to give, meaning he can only truly fall in love once, and when that happens, he literally gives part of him away. Sharing true love's kiss with the devil means you swap a tiny little bit of yourself with him. That's why you've been channeling me, as Miss Lopez so aptly put it, and why I've been pulling a Chloe Decker down in Hell, trying to see the good in people and holding back on the punishments."

"You …" Chloe cleared her throat. "You lost me at 'true love's kiss'."

Lucifer's eyes softened as he raised his hand to cup her cheek. "You heard that right," he said. "You're not only my first love, Chloe. You're my true love."

"I am?" Chloe whispered, overwhelmed.

Lucifer took one of her hands in his, his thumb stroking gentle circles in her palm. Then he lifted her hand toward his face and pressed his lips to her knuckles. He remained like that for a moment, his eyes closed.

"No one has ever made me feel the way you do, Chloe," he said quietly. "My life on Earth used to be all about fun and games and making deals and lots of meaningless sex. And then I met you, and you made me want to be better. For you, I was prepared to leave these wicked ways behind and become someone worthy of you. It took me a long time to understand that I actually hated who I was, and that I longed to be someone else. Someone you would be able to love."

"But you made me better, too," said Chloe. "You made me a better detective. Working with you was the greatest eye-opener of my life, and so was getting to know you." A slow smile spread on her face. "Falling in love with you was almost inevitable at some point. And it feels _right_, Lucifer, it feels as if that's exactly what needed to happen! I've never felt like that before. Nothing has ever felt more right than loving you." She blushed a little at the confession.

Lucifer froze. His eyes flashed red once again as he rose to his feet, standing so close to her that their bodies touched. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes.

"You don't know," he said, and there was wonder in his voice. "Of course you don't know, we never told you …" He took her face between his hands and lowered his head toward hers. "Let me kiss you once more before I tell you," he whispered. "You may be angry with me afterwards."

_A/N:__ I don't really mean this to be a cliffhanger, but I don't have a fully developed theory on how it may turn out when Chloe finally learns that she was placed in Lucifer's path on purpose. This is really just meant as a sort of opener for season five the way I can see it happening._

_Themes to delve into in that season could then include:_

_The repercussions of Chloe being a little more like Lucifer and Lucifer a little more like Chloe_

_Chloe's thoughts on free will and choice and how her entire connection with Lucifer seems orchestrated by dear old Dad (maybe the bonus episode from Season 2 could be revisited in the course of that)_

_Quintessential Deckerstar, of course_

_The search for a new Prince of Hell_

_Maze dealing with the fact she is beginning to love Earth_

_Eve and Maze's relationship_

_Baby Charlie_

_Ella and Dan_

_We will see, hopefully, whether the showrunners are thinking roughly along the same lines. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me. Feel free to leave a review if there is anything you would like to tell me about this story _


	2. Coping

**Chapter Two: Coping**

_A/N:__ When I first wrote this, it was meant as a one-shot, but you guys have really motivated me to continue with your likes and follows and reviews __ If I'm not mistaken, this is currently among my most-reviewed and most-favorited stores here on (it seems like my other stories are all in fandoms that are either too obscure or too popular to gain much of a following). Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!_

When Lucifer had finished explaining, Chloe stood and stared for a while without saying anything at all. Lucifer stepped back a little, giving her space, and waited. But when the minutes passed and she still didn't speak, he started fidgeting nervously.

"I know it's a lot to take," he said hesitantly. "It's just the sort of thing Dad would do. Just when you think you've managed something by yourself, you find out that it wasn't you at all …"

"I was put in your path on purpose?" Chloe said eventually, looking up at him. "Your dad … he made sure I was conceived when I was just to make sure that you and I would eventually meet?"

"It looks that way." Lucifer stared at the floor, afraid to look in her eyes. "So that feeling you've been talking about … how right it feels for you to be with me … it's not real." It physically pained him to say it.

"What?" Chloe's voice cut the air like a whip. "No!"

"No?" Lucifer looked up, confused.

"No!" Chloe repeated. "Just because something has been orchestrated doesn't mean that the outcome isn't real!" A soft note crept into her voice as she continued. "Lucifer, look at me."

Lucifer slowly raised his eyes to meet hers and, to his great surprise, saw her smile at him. Chloe reached out and took his face between her hands, making sure he couldn't look away. "Your dad may have made sure we met, but he certainly hasn't forced me to fall in love with you. He set me up as your chance for redemption, for forgiveness, but it was still entirely up to you to seize that chance, and up to me to provide it." Her thumbs stroked his temples. "This may surprise you, but I honestly don't think it's such a big deal. I mean … trusting that God has a plan for everyone is something that a lot of people believe, isn't it? So his plan for me is to find love in a rather unexpected way. I've got to say … as far as plans go, I've seen worse!"

"But what about free will? Don't you feel used?" Lucifer still couldn't quite believe that Chloe would really take this big revelation in stride. His own concerns came bubbling up. "It's so typical for Dad … he won't stop meddling!"

"I don't see it as meddling, to be honest," said Chloe. "Look, when you renounced your father and fell from grace, did you think he would ever forgive you?"

"Of course not!"

"But he did. He specifically created a way for you to find forgiveness; not even so much from him, but from yourself. You said it yourself: you had to learn to forgive yourself. And, by the way, I wasn't the only person who helped you do that! So does that mean that Linda and Ella and Charlotte and all the others were placed in your path, too? Would you really have been able to let yourself love me if you hadn't worked through your issues with Linda? If you hadn't helped Charlotte find her way back to herself? If you hadn't bonded with Ella? Hadn't watched Maze grow accustomed to the earth she used to hate so much?" Chloe shook her head vehemently. "If I was meant to be part of that, so be it. But I absolutely refuse to believe that my love for you is anyone else's but my own, and yours. Your father may have given me a … a disposition to love you, but he did not put these feelings inside me. They _grew_ in me as I got to know you because they are _real_!"

With their faces mere inches apart, Lucifer had no choice but to look straight into her eyes, and he saw the truth in them as she was trying to make him see her point. His heart, no longer his own, clenched with delicious pain in his chest and then started beating very fast, as if it were leaping towards the woman who owned it now. At a complete loss for words, riding on an overwhelming wave of emotion, Lucifer closed the distance between them with a hungry kiss, his lips all but crashing down on hers. Chloe drew a sharp breath before responding enthusiastically, her lips parting under his, letting him in. This was nothing like the tentative, hesitant kisses they had shared before; nothing like the slow, tender kisses they had shared earlier today when they were at last reunited, either. This time, Lucifer was not sure if he would be able to stop even if he wanted to, and Chloe's response to him did not imply any different.

_How fortunate that there was absolutely no reason why we should stop_, thought Lucifer as he felt Chloe's hands travel under his shirt, fumbling with the buttons until she managed to slide it off his shoulders and continuing to run her hands over his bare upper body. He shivered at her touch, and the sensation was both well-known and completely new. He certainly knew arousal, but this was so much different from all those countless other sexual encounters he'd had. He never knew how complete it made you feel when both your body _and _your heart were longing for the other person, aching for them so much that it made you light-headed and caused your body to break out in goosebumps, your heart beating like a drum all the while. What it was like to kiss someone and dread the moment the kiss ended even while it was still going on.

Somehow his hands had found their way under her blouse by now although he had no memory of how they had got there. He ran his fingers up and down her sides, brushing against her bra a few times before lingering there. Chloe mumbled something and pushed lightly against his chest, prompting him to back up in the direction of the bedroom. They fell onto the king-size bed in a tangle of limbs, her on top of him, never once breaking the kiss, and it occurred to him in that moment that he never wanted to see anyone else here with him for as long as they were both walking this earth. He was breathing her, drinking her in, letting her fill him up until he felt so light that it was a shock to discover he wasn't floating toward the ceiling. His whole world was Chloe, and Chloe was his whole world, and as everything started to blur into delicious intoxication, he found himself saying a silent, profound, heartfelt prayer of gratitude to his father for bringing her into his life.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was past two in the morning when Chloe and Lucifer both started to feel the exhaustion of the past few hours. They had made love again and again, and in between they had just lain there, holding each other and talking. Neither seemed to be willing to get up and leave the other for even a moment, but eventually they were starting to feel hungry and dehydrated, so Chloe nipped over into the living room to grab her phone and order something to eat. On the way back to the bed, she checked her messages and was relieved to find that Dan had kept his promise: apart from a good-night selfie from him and Trixie—specifically stating that she need not reply—there were no new messages.

After placing an order of sushi to be delivered, Chloe slipped back between the sheets. Lucifer welcomed her back into his arms like they had been apart for days, pulling her close and starting to stroke her hair. Chloe felt a deep contentment settle over her, and with a small sigh she snuggled up to the devil whose heart she now possessed, and who had never seemed less diabolical to her.

Twenty minutes later, her phone pinged to announce the arrival of the food delivery downstairs. Chloe got back up and, for want of a robe, slipped into Lucifer's discarded shirt. It came down to her knees, leaving her more than modestly covered to be able to receive the delivery guy. She was just waiting for the doorbell to ring, her signal to send down the elevator, when a familiar rumbling sound told her that the lift was already on the move. Frowning, she took a step back, feeling uneasy. The elevator required a key and a passcode; either both of these had failed and admitted the delivery guy without verification, or someone else was riding up in it. Both options were bad.

"Lucifer, someone's coming up, and I didn't send the elevator," she called over her shoulder. "You might want to …" Before she had finished, Lucifer already appeared by her side, zipping the fly of the pants he'd obviously thrown on in a hurry.

"Step aside, please," he said, his tone calm, but Chloe wasn't fooled: he was nervous. They were both thinking about the gang of armed assailants which had burst through these very doors not too long ago, Chloe reckoned.

The doors opened. Chloe didn't know what she had expected, but when a pimply youth wearing a uniform and baseball cap stepped out, carrying a styrofoam box which clearly contained their food, it was almost anticlimactic.

Until she saw that the youth had not been alone in the elevator: Maze stepped out behind him.

"Hey again, Decker," she drawled. "I ran into this guy downstairs and figured that you might want some …" She trailed off as she spotted Lucifer.

Chloe had never seen Maze so completely blindsided. Her eyes widened, her mouth hung slightly open, and her whole body seemed to crumple a bit, as if all the tension that usually kept her upright had gone out of her at once. Something was glowing deep in her eyes. They were not flashing red the way Lucifer's sometimes did, but at that moment, Chloe could truly see the demon inside her.

She saw the delivery guy's gaze traveling across the three of them and almost had to laugh when she realized what this whole scene must look like to him. For all he knew, Maze had come home to catch her boyfriend _in flagrante_ with her best friend or something similarly soapy. She quickly took the food cartons from him, shoved a tip into his hand and pushed him back toward the elevator. "It's not what it looks like, but it's still complicated," she told him with an apologetic smile. "I don't think you want to be around for that."

"No, ma'am. Thanks." And he was gone.

Chloe set down the box and turned back around to find Maze and Lucifer in the exact same position as before. None had moved an inch. But now Maze turned to her. "What is this, Decker?" she demanded to know. "What kind of game have you been playing?"

Chloe raised her hands, taking care not to enrage the demon even further. "I haven't been playing anything, Maze. When we spoke earlier tonight, I was lonely and heartbroken. I haven't lied to you, never. It's just that … he came back. Shortly after you left. He just walked in, and …" Her voice caught in her throat. "… and here he is now," she finished.

Maze's narrowed eyes lingered on Chloe for a moment longer, but then she apparently decided that Chloe was telling the truth, and she rounded back on Lucifer.

"Explain." She crossed her arms in front of her chest. Chloe could see her fingers digging deep into her sides. She was barely containing herself.

Lucifer shrugged in a valiant attempt at nonchalance. "I've come back to this world," he said. "Hell just wasn't cutting it for me anymore."

Maze moved so fast it was only a blur. She pounced on Lucifer, and before neither he nor Chloe had even so much as focused their eyes on her again, she had slapped his face twice. "You bastard," she said, her voice dangerously calm but fluttering in the back of her throat. She punched him in the chest, and Lucifer stumbled backwards with a gasp of pain and surprise. Chloe winced. Maze threw a mean punch.

The demon moved in on Lucifer, drawing her leg back for one of her famous kicks, but Lucifer had regained his balance now and swiftly moved out of the way. "Maze, stop it!"

"You bastard," Maze repeated, and this time her voice was shaking. "You never sent for me, never sent word. You knew that all I wanted was to go back, and then you just left me stranded here! How could you do that?"

"It's not that simple," said Lucifer, hopping out of the way of another kick. "Besides, if you truly think about it, would you really have wanted to go back to Hell now?"

"You could have _asked_!" Maze screamed. Her kicks came in more rapid succession now, but her aim was poor. Lucifer had no trouble at all evading them. "You could have given me at least a sign that you _cared_ about what I wanted when you were gone!"

"But I did!" he protested. "Before I left, you were finally warming up to this world. You had friends. You even fell in …"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY IT!" Maze bellowed, and this time, her kick hit home. Lucifer doubled over, gasping hard. The heel of her boot had drawn blood.

_Damn it, _thought Chloe, _it's because I'm close. _She drew back slowly, but Maze suddenly whipped her head around at her.

"Stay right where you are, Decker! I want him to bleed!"

"Whoah!" Lucifer had gotten his breath and now drew himself up to his full height. His eyes flashed red. "Mazakeen!" he thundered, and his voice suddenly seemed amplified. "I command you to stop and listen!"

Maze scowled at him. Chloe was almost surprised that she didn't actually snarl or hiss. But she let her arms drop to her sides, where she balled her hands into tight fists, and both her feet remained on the ground.

"Mazakeen," Lucifer said again, but this time there was no anger in his voice. "Are you really angry because I did not summon you back to Hell? Or are you just angry at everything—me, the world—because you had your heart broken just when you were finally ready to open it up? That the world dealt you a blow just when you were starting to really enjoy it? Even creatures of Hell have hearts, and they are just as fragile as human hearts. And when we give them away, we never fully get them back."

Maze was breathing heavily. Chloe could see her fighting back tears. Her heart went out to the demon. Maze was the toughest person she had ever met, hardened and cynical. It took one hell of a lot more to make her cry than anyone else.

Lucifer must have realized the same thing, for he took a step toward Maze and held out his hands. "Maze, believe me, I wanted nothing more than my faithful lieutenant by my side down there," he said. "But I saw how you had bonded with your friends up here, and I couldn't take that away from you. Not after what happened with Eve." He raised a hand as Maze started to speak. "No, I know, you think that after Eve you just wanted to get out, go back to Hell, take out your rage and your pain on some poor soul there. But there were other people here, too. I saw how attached you had become to Linda and her family, how deep your bond with Baby Charlie ran. And I saw you taking care of the Lux like you were just holding down the fort until I came back. I don't think you ever truly believed I was gone for good, Maze. And so you didn't make a real effort to make me bring you back to Hell. You were just angry and hurt that I left you to your own devices, but the truth is that I believe that was exactly what you needed." He had reached her now, his hands still outstretched, palms up. "I _do_ care for you, Maze, perhaps now more than ever. But I've had a great epiphany not too long ago, and it's changed everything for me. All I want is for you to have the same chance. And you won't get that chance in Hell."

Maze managed to hold his gaze for one more second before she lost her fight against the tears. Her eyes simply brimmed over, and Lucifer held out his arms. She came to him like a sleepwalker, resting her head against his shoulder, her arms creeping around his waist. Lucifer hugged her back and, over her shoulder, exchanged a long glance with Chloe. Relief was written all over his face. Chloe smiled at him and nodded. She was glad that he had managed to get through to Maze. And she still believed that there was a chance that Eve would come back with her feelings and situation all sorted out, and then who knew what was in the cards for Maze. The epiphany Lucifer had mentioned had, of course, been his realization that he needed to forgive himself in order to understand his true feelings, and how he had come to terms with loving her.

It was testament to how strong their love for each other really was, Chloe reflected, that she could stand here calmly and without the slightest hint of jealousy watching Lucifer holding a woman who not only knew him better than anyone but had also shared multiple lifetimes with him as a partner, sergeant, and occasional mistress—and that all she could think about was how much she was hoping things would turn out right for that woman in the end.

_A/N:__ So here we are, having sorted out at least two of the issues which I hope the final season will address. I actually do have an idea for another chapter, but it will be a while before I have time to write it down. So until then, keep those reviews coming to keep me motivated ;) It was thanks to you, after all, that I wrote another chapter to this in the first place, so thank you so much for reading and commenting._


	3. Busted

**Chapter Three: Busted**

_A/N:__ You have been asking for new material … well, here it is. Mind, though, that I am not planning to map out the entire last season! I'll focus on moments instead. Think of them as subplots of the individual episodes._

_How long are Chloe and Lucifer going to manage to keep their relationship from their friends? Here's a possible way for them to get busted. Enjoy!_

It was harder than Lucifer had ever imagined it would be: Walking into the precinct every day as if nothing had changed, joking and flirting and oozing carelessness, hitting on female witnesses and visiting officers alike … he never would have imagined that all that would feel fake and stale to him one day. Lately he was forcing himself to throw even the most casual of glances at other women that were not Chloe. He heaved sighs of relief every time he'd gotten past the sea of women he used to bathe in with such relish and arrived at the relative safety of their unit, where there was no need to keep up the charade, seeing as the only women he saw there regularly were Chloe herself and Ella. Ella and Lucifer were in a very comfortable place, he felt; there was no need to be flirty with her and keep up appearances. She was like a little sister to him. Besides, she stole a lot of glances at Detective Douche lately … Lucifer was not sure how he felt about that. Well, even Dan had his qualities, he supposed. Probably. Perhaps.

This morning, however, Lucifer entered the bullpen to find a small group of officers including Dan and Ella clustered around a speakerphone on one of the desks. A tinny voice came from the speakers in regular intervals, speaking in that police code that Lucifer had never bothered to memorize. He did notice, however, that the atmosphere in the room was tense and that some of the officers were nervously biting their lips or nails.

Ella spotted him and blanched. Sliding off the table she had been half sitting on, half leaning against, she rushed towards Lucifer to meet him halfway.

"You don't know, do you?" Her eyes searched his face, and he supposed that his ignorance was written straight across it.

"Know what?"

Ella swallowed. "It's Chloe," she said.

A jolt of fear shook Lucifer, and when Ella did not immediately continue, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her with him to the side.

"What about Chloe?" he asked urgently. "Where is she?"

"She was called to a murder scene earlier, before you arrived," Ella told him quickly. "She wanted to wait for you, but it was urgent, and so she left with just the patrol officer. She's been checking in with Dan on the phone, but a few minutes ago there was a commotion on the line and it just went dead, and now we've got Dispatch on speaker until we find out what happened. We think that perhaps the first officer on the scene did not secure it properly, and the perp may still have been nearby …" She trailed off and looked over her shoulder at the cluster of officers around the phone.

Lucifer took a deep breath and made an effort to exhale very slowly through his teeth. "Are you saying that there may be a murderer with her right now and you have no contact with her and nobody knows what happened?"

"Basically, yes," said Ella. "We're all extremely wor—"

She was interrupted by the tinny voice speaking rapidly, with the police officers talking over it. Lucifer strained to hear and caught the phrase "Officer down."

He descended on the other officers like a hurricane. "Officer down?" he yelled. "What does that mean? Is it Chloe? What the _hell_ is going on there?" He looked from one to the other, but they all seemed too intimidated to talk to him. Nobody would even look at him. Lucifer made a huge effort to restrain himself and not knock the phone off the table. "Somebody talk to me!" Despair crept into his voice. "Is Chloe Decker alright?"

It was Dan who finally answered. "We don't know," he said despondently. "It's been reported by an eyewitness, apparently …"

He stopped abruptly as Lucifer pounced on him, grabbing the front of his shirt. "Where?" he asked. "Tell me exactly where she is now! I'm going there!"

Five minutes later, Lucifer was flooring the accelerator of his Corvette, weaving in and out of traffic to the gasps of Ella and Dan, who were squeezed into the passenger seat next to him. Hunched over the steering wheel, Lucifer stared grimly ahead, willing the visions of a dead or gravely injured Chloe to disappear. Not knowing if she was alright was killing him.

"Turn left!" yelled Dan, and Lucifer swerved recklessly across four lanes, accompanied by the sound of angry horns and screeching tires. He did not even bother to check the rear view mirror.

They sped on, Dan yelling directions, until they ended up in front of a vacant lot that was cordoned off with yellow Police Do Not Cross tape. Lucifer killed the engine and vaulted over the door, leaving the keys dangling from the ignition. He saw Ella and Dan scrambling over each other to get out and follow him, but he was already running at full speed toward the police officer standing guard.

"Hey, you can't …" the officer started, but Lucifer just blazed past him.

"It's OK, he's with us," he heard Dan shout behind him. The rest of the conversation faded away as he raced around the corner.

Two ambulances were parked with their hoods facing him, blue and red lights flashing, and a few paramedics were busy behind the cars. He saw the edge of a stretcher, but he also saw something else: a black body bag, zipped shut and evidently not empty.

Lucifer stopped dead, and his knees buckled. He would have fallen if Ella and Dan had not reached his side right at that moment, and Dan quickly grabbed his upper arm and steadied him. "Don't you dare faint now," he hissed.

A shocked gasp from Ella and the terrorized look on her face told Lucifer that she, too, had now spotted the body bag. A moment later, Dan's grip on his arm hardened, the detective's fingers digging painfully into muscle and tissue. Lucifer hardly noticed it. A moan started somewhere in his chest area, and fear and confusion were followed by a burst of rage so intense that he squeezed his eyes shot for fear that they might flash red for everyone to see.

"Dad, if you're doing that to me now …" he bit out under his breath. The words burned their way up his throat.

"Maybe it's not her. I'm sure it's not her. Of course it's not her," Ella was mumbling next to him. She had reached for Dan's hand and was obviously squeezing very hard, judging from the way her fingers were displacing the blood and turning the detective's hand a ghostly pale color.

"No, it can't be her," Lucifer heard himself say. "She can't be … hurt. I would have …" He stopped himself before he could finish. It wouldn't do to tell Ella and Dan that he would have felt it if something had really happened to her. At best they would think it was the worry talking; at worst, they would start to wonder what he may have meant. But Chloe held his devil's heart, which he had given away, and the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that he would indeed have felt something if death had wrenched the heart from its keeper's hands.

He heard Ella hyperventilate behind him, and from the corner of his eye saw that Dan was doing the decent thing: he had pushed his own worry aside and put an arm around her. She leaned into him, her hands shaking.

Slowly putting one foot in front of the other, Lucifer edged forward to peer around the corner of the ambulance, hoping to get a clearer picture.

"It's not her!" Ella said again, her voice suddenly very close. She had caught up to him, pulling Dan with her by the hand. But this time the terror was gone from her voice, and when he looked at her, he saw that her dark eyes were huge and brimming with tears, but she was smiling. Her voice cracked as she pointed at the second ambulance and said, "Look, there she is, she's talking to the medic." And then Ella turned into Dan, buried her face against his chest and started to cry. Dan pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, and the idea crossed Lucifer's mind again that maybe there was more going on than he was aware of. Perhaps he was a little more fine-tuned to those things now that he was no longer actively on the prowl all the time.

But none of that really mattered to him, and the thought was gone from his mind as fast as it had arrived. He looked into the direction Ella had indicated, and there she was, Chloe, talking to a paramedic. Her clothes were dirty and rumpled, there was a hole in her left pant leg, and her temple was bandaged. But she was standing on her own two feet, talking and gesticulating, and Lucifer's knees buckled again, but this time with relief.

"Chloe," he wanted to call, but his voice didn't obey him, and all he managed was a hoarse whisper.

Miraculously, Chloe still glanced in his direction. Their eyes met, and their gazes stayed locked for an endless moment. Then Lucifer started toward her, his stride turning into a run, and Chloe hastily excused herself from the paramedic and met him halfway.

They collided like stars, the air imploding around them and enclosing them in a safe space where nothing else existed. Lucifer wrapped his arms around Chloe and held her as tight as he could even as his own momentum still carried him on so they twirled around like dancers. But Chloe held him just as tight, her fingers grabbing the back of his shirt by the handful (where had he lost his suit jacket, he wondered vaguely), and she just circled with him before they came to a standstill, locked in an inextricable embrace. For a while, they did not speak, they just held each other.

Eventually, though, they stirred.

"Don't ever do that to me again!" Lucifer's breathing was labored and he had to force himself to speak. But there was also a trace of wonder in his voice. "I don't think I've ever been this afraid before."

"Probably because you had no one to be afraid _for_," said Chloe, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

"Probably." Lucifer couldn't stop touching her, couldn't stop stroking her hair, her face. "I didn't know it could be so … _intense_, fearing for someone else."

Chloe looked at him with tenderness in her eyes. "You learn new things every day when you love," she whispered.

Lucifer leaned his forehead against hers and closed his eyes with relief. "I realize that every day," he said softly. "I love you so much, Chloe."

"And I love you," she whispered back. "And if there weren't a bunch of people whom we work with watching, I would kiss you right now. But seeing as they don't know …"

"Sure." Lucifer finally managed to end the hug, reluctantly. He snuck one arm behind her back, though, grabbed one of her hands and laced his fingers through hers. Secretly holding hands behind her back, they finally turned around – and almost bumped into Dan and Ella, who had approached. Evidently they had been there long enough, because Ella's happy grin was eating up her entire face while Dan looked back and forth between Lucifer and Chloe and quite obviously had not decided yet whether to be happy or pissed.

What was far more interesting to Lucifer, however, was the fact that they were still holding hands, too. Deciding that the best defense was a good offense, he pointed at their linked hands and whisper-shouted, "Busted!"

Ella and Dan looked at each other, then down at their hands, and sprang apart as if they had both touched the same hot plate.

Chloe chuckled. "Don't bother," she told them. "It's been obvious for weeks."

"It has?" Lucifer glanced at her in genuine amazement.

"Yes, it has. Well … you've been away, of course."

"Speaking of," interrupted Ella, who had found her voice again although her face was still blushed a deep red, "where _have _you been, Lucifer? You know that Chloe here has been channeling you in your absence?"

Lucifer looked at Chloe. She looked back at him, and they shared a small, intimate smile which caused Ella to look back and forth between them in awe.

"Oh my God," she said softly. "There is something _really _special going on between you two, isn't there? I can see it. It's a beautiful thing." A smile lit up her face, and she stepped forward to give each of them a hug. "Whatever it was, Lucifer, wherever you've been, I can see that none of that matters now," she said quietly. "The only thing that matters is that you came back to her."

"You've got a point there, Miss Lopez," said Lucifer. His voice softened as he looked at Chloe again. "And you are quite right: it doesn't matter at all where I've been. Although I can tell you this much: I've been to hell and back, and for her, it's been worth every painful step."

Ella gave Lucifer one last squeeze and then let him go. "Just make sure that this time around you're actually staying." And with a wink at Chloe and Lucifer she added, "Who's busted now?"

_A/N:__ As always, I am indebted to you for liking and reviewing this story. Keep it up _


End file.
